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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30004452">The Liminal Sickness</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/somedayisours/pseuds/somedayisours'>somedayisours</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>We Tore One Down and Erected Another There [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Death, Character Study, F/M, I cut most of them out, Infidelity, Inner Dialogue, Internal Monologue, Mental Health Issues, Mentioned Namikaze Minato - Freeform, Mentioned Uchiha Fugaku/Uchiha Mikoto - Freeform, Mentioned Uchiha Obito - Freeform, Mommy Issues, Older Woman/Younger Man, Rare Pairings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:19:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>607</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30004452</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/somedayisours/pseuds/somedayisours</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"<i>It has been a long time since anyone has touched Kakashi with anything other than violence.</i>"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hatake Kakashi &amp; Uchiha Mikoto, Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Mikoto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>We Tore One Down and Erected Another There [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1355314</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Liminal Sickness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title from <i>Dear Beth</i> by Andrea Cote-Botero.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She rests her hand on his arm just below his shoulder. Even though the thick material of his shirt he can feel the warmth of her, hear the steady pound of her heart in her chest, the subtle hiccup in her breathing with every inhale.</p><p>It has been a long time since anyone has touched Kakashi with anything other than violence.</p><p>"I'm sorry," he says to the end of the street where he can see two civilians arguing more than bargaining over some melons, not looking at her.</p><p>Mikoto laughs, a soft chuckle that holds no true humor. "It's not your fault. Either of them."</p><p>And just like that, she's cut to the core of him. Maybe he'd been too eager in his assessment of her nonviolence. She's a heavily decorated Jōnin, still spoken highly of twelve years after her early retirement.</p><p>
  <strong>•</strong>
</p><p>They come back to that topic five meetings later, sat together in a bar Kakashi would never frequent beyond this instance. A bar with no other Uchiha frequenters.</p><p>"You were still a boy... The both of you were," she amends. "The three of you should have never been sent on a mission like that, let alone entrusted to complete it by yourselves. What happened to Obito is not your fault. It is the Lord Third's, Minato's. And don't you deny it, it was his job to protect the three of you and he failed thricefold."</p><p>A shiver travels down his spine at her words, and when he dares to look at her then he knows it isn't something he can take back, her dark eyes splitting him even further than they've done every time before.</p><p>"He could not-" Kakashi chokes out against his better judgment, before reconsidering his wording around the buz. "He couldn't have known what would happen."</p><p>"You're right," she says, withdrawing from him. "I let the same thing happen to Itachi, and he paid for it. And it's not a mistake I'll make again."</p><p>Minato lingers strangely sour in his mind.</p><p>They sit together in silence until she finishes her drink, excusing herself with her hand clasped over his and a few murmured reassurances of next time.</p><p>With her absence, he specifically does not think of the heat of her body next to his, how her arm would brush against him every time she reached for her drink, how she smelled of the smoke caught in her hair and faded perfume.</p><p>He especially does not think of the fact that she goes home now to her son, to her husband.</p><p>
  <strong>•</strong>
</p><p>In the privacy of his apartment, he touches her face softly, his calloused fingers dragging slowly against the highest point of her cheekbone. Like his father would his mother. He maps her face with his hands, with the Sharingan he can never shut off.</p><p>Her own eyes spin lazily to match his, a courtesy he thinks.</p><p>He doesn't have to think when he pulls his mask down and presses his lips to hers, his hands on her face and her hands digging into the soft flesh on his hips.</p><p>She'll leave bruises, Kakashi's sure, but he can not make himself displeased with the idea of being marked by her physically as much as he is mentally.</p><p>
  <strong>•</strong>
</p><p>When it happens he tries to save her son, the younger brother of the boy he most recently failed to protect. He fails like every other time before.</p><p>It was the Uchiha he wasn't watching, the one he still doesn't watch. The one they suspected of killing Itachi.</p><p>Mikoto's buried with her husband, two names on a singular stone, he doesn't dare visit her like that.</p>
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